


across the sea (the birds are free)

by Tridraconeus



Series: penance [4]
Category: Dishonored (Video Games)
Genre: Depression, Friendship, Gen, Heart-to-Heart
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-09-10
Updated: 2017-09-10
Packaged: 2018-12-25 23:27:38
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 473
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12046512
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Tridraconeus/pseuds/Tridraconeus
Summary: “You are whole,” he said with as much conviction as he could muster. Malia shook her head. Her hair fell in messy waves, straight but for the salty ocean wind that coarsened and twisted it. She sighed, weighing his words. Measuring her own.“I am not enough,” she said finally.





	across the sea (the birds are free)

**Author's Note:**

> something soft and small to make myself happy. title from brand new's [137.](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eERuRgCONdE) dialogue insp from [this comic](http://elliebeanz.tumblr.com/post/125174224968/screaming-into-the-void).

Thomas never really fancied himself anybody's confidante. He never really fancied himself anybody's keeper, more importantly-- but just as Everett entrenched himself into the goings-on at Dunwall Tower's dark places, he found himself in the company of those carrying a different type of melancholy than his. 

He didn't respect them any less. He couldn't-- it felt like some sort of betrayal. It led to him searching them out, sometimes, with a bottle of whiskey. With Malia, it nearly always led him to the ocean. 

She sat on the edge of a long, flat rock at the base of the cliff that led up to the gazebo-- to the statue of the late Empress. Thomas found his own careful way down and sat next to her. She didn't speak, not yet. Thomas realized, somewhat bitterly, that she expected him to open the conversation. Would they even have one? Or would it just be like other times, where he offered a consolation and took his own leave? He set the bottle down between them. She shook her head. He shrugged, and looked down to the swirling water barely a meter away.

“Are you feeling alright?” 

Clumsy, but direct, and Malia never dealt in honeyed words. He liked her for that.  Sometimes Thomas thought that he liked her in a deeper way. It's a game he's never played; he doesn't know the rules. Malia kicked her legs together, heels scuffing the rock. Thomas shucked his own shoes and socks off in a show of solidarity and pulled his legs into a cross. He didn’t go as far as she had with her pants rolled up to her knees. It didn’t seem necessary.

“It is hard to explain,” Malia murmured. She uncrossed her ankles, dipping her toes into the water pooling between the rocks. Safe, thanks to the low tide, from the hagfish. “I do not feel whole.”

Thomas carefully avoided looking her in the face and instead settled for looking at her legs, bearing the red witness of a week in Serkonos. He didn't know what to say. _Me too? People like us-- we are never whole?_ She wasn't the one steeped in witchcraft and missing it. This was something different. Thomas shifted his hand-- his right hand-- to cover hers. She always ran hot and moreso now with a ruddy sunburn creeping up her arms.

“You are whole,” he said with as much conviction as he could muster. Malia shook her head. Her hair fell in messy waves, straight but for the salty ocean wind that coarsened and twisted it. She sighed, weighing his words. Measuring her own. 

“I am not enough,” she said finally. 

Thomas finally looked her in the eyes, mournful and glossy. His left hand clutched the edge of the rock they shared as a sitting place. 

“I am not enough either.”


End file.
